


All Your Cities I Will Burn

by MiraMira



Category: Peggy-O - Simon & Garfunkel (Song)
Genre: American Revolution, Betrayal, F/M, Historical, Implied Sexual Content, Infidelity, Intrigue, Revolutionary War, Romance, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:43:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/pseuds/MiraMira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Margaret Malone will do anything for the soldier she loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Your Cities I Will Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghosthorse_tracks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthorse_tracks/gifts).



> ghosthorse_tracks, I was fascinated by the same shift of tone from the original song that you were, and figured there had to be more to both Peggy and the captain. Thank you for the inspiring prompt!
> 
> I have moved the setting to the American Revolution in part to reduce the chance of cultural inaccuracies, but do not claim to be an expert on the period or have done extensive research, and apologize for any factual errors or anachronisms.

The soldiers come marching into town on a clear summer day, with their bright red coats and thundering drums and clanking cannons. Everyone turns out, cheering as if this is a holiday – or worse, their deliverance from the war, and not an invasion.

Maggie stands alongside her mother in the town square, doing her best to match the wide-eyed, delighted expressions around her. Inside, she seethes. For the first time in months, she is grateful Johnny cannot be here with her, though she hears his caustic commentary on the occupying forces as clearly as though he is whispering it in her ear. How she wishes the regiment's coats were blue, and that one of the solemn, self-satisfied faces before her bore his irrepressible smile instead!

She has stared too long, she realizes, snapping out of her reverie. There is someone looking back: an officer, judging by the horse he rides and the fine trim on his uniform, though he cannot be much older than her. His eyes are the same deep blue as the sky, and while his countenance remains impassive, she doubts he looks on his foes with the same warmth she sees reflected in them.

Maggie flushes, angry and embarrassed. Nothing more. Of that she is certain.

-

If she thought navigating the crowds were bad outside, the inn is far worse. The many soldiers who have already gravitated there and are either setting down the sort of belongings that portend a long stay or carrying them upstairs do not improve her mood. Thankfully, Fergus the innkeeper spots her and waves her over to the bar.

“Maggie! Give this ale a taste, will you? It's gone a mite odd.” He presses a tankard into her hands. Wrapped around the base is a thin envelope, addressed to her in a familiar, spiky hand that makes her heart leap.

“Likely the last one for a while,” he warns her in a low voice, as she snatches up the letter and tucks it into her bodice. “Once the army learns the Redcoats are here, they won't risk deliveries.”

“You're a dear,” she tells him, dropping a quick kiss on his cheek. If anyone in town understands her current state of mind, it is Fergus: her late father's closest friend, and as true a patriot as Johnny in his own way.

Errand accomplished, she races home as fast as she can, tolerating her mother's prattling on the soldiers just long enough to declare herself overwhelmed by the day's excitement and bolt for the safety of her room. She props herself against the door and tears into the letter, seeking comfort and good cheer.

But there is little in the message to raise her spirits, save Johnny's words of endearment and hopeful talk of their future once he returns. The army is desperate: in need of recruits, supplies, intelligence, morale, and victories. Although Johnny is not the sort of man to admit defeat, for the first time, he seems willing to admit the possibility exists.

She reads his words over one more time. “Intelligence,” she muses, pressing a finger to her lips as she thinks on the young officer and his attentive blue eyes. Perhaps she, too, can find a way to serve the cause.

-

Her opportunity comes a week later, on the way to market. With a gesture she has practiced until it seems careless, she knocks her hat loose from its hairpins and sends it tumbling down the road directly into the officer's path.

“Thank you,” she says, a bit too high and far too breathy, as she runs up just in time for him to pick it up and hand it back to her. She restores it to its proper place with one hand, while resting the other against her clavicle as though to steady herself. Her pounding heart, at least, is not counterfeit.

The officer studies her. “I've seen you before,” he says at last. His voice is like his eyes: kinder and more pleasant-sounding than his profession would suggest. But then, so is Johnny's.

She ducks her head and does her best to blush. “Yes. When you arrived.” 

“I thought so. Such a sweet face would be difficult to forget.” The tips of his ears glow red for an instant. “But forgive me. Where have my manners gone?” He doffs his own hat and executes a graceful bow. “Captain Benjamin Sampson, at your service. Ben, to my friends.”

“Peggy,” she tells him. It is a name no one has called her since she was five, when she balled her tiny fists and declared she would no longer be compared to a wooden stake. That hatred has not abated with the years. But silly, simpering, dumb-as-a-post Peggy would be flattered by the Captain's attentions, and so Peggy she will be. “Or Miss Malone, to impertinent soldiers.”

He presses her hand to his lips. “Peggy Malone. I will not forget that, either. May I call on you, Miss Malone?”

She twists away, hoping he will interpret her efforts to banish what feels like a burning brand as modesty. “I fear we are not yet well acquainted enough for that, sir. But if you happen to be heading into town, I would be grateful for an escort. That is, unless you have more pressing business?”

He does not.

-

“...Reach Rhode Island within the week,” one of the soldiers declares, quaffing the last of his drink and slamming down his tankard with relish.

Maggie sits on the edge of the gathering, doing her best to look decorative while hoarding every scrap of information she can pick up: _six thousand men_ , _Hessian reinforcements_ , _planning to supervise himself_. Every minute or so, she reserves a portion of her focus to check if Ben is watching her to see whether she has decided resuming her errands would be more entertaining. Half the time, he is. She flashes a reassuring smile.

A few of the men follow the direction of his gaze to see what has him so preoccupied, and are slow to look away. Their attention appears more appreciative than inquisitive, but is unwelcome nonetheless.

“More ale, gentlemen?” she offers sweetly. The effusive responses provide all the distraction she could have hoped.

To her great relief, Fergus is on duty rather than hiding away in the back. Although perhaps it should not come as a surprise: from what she has heard, he has been working even longer days than usual, reluctant to let his sons and daughters anywhere near the enlisted men. 

She places the requests, then leans in as close as she can manage. “You said that there wouldn't be any letters in. Is there still a way to get messages out?”

Fergus drops the cheerful façade, with a pointed scowl that travels from her to the soldiers and back again. “Surprised you'd want Johnny hearing the news 'round these parts.”

At least now she knows Ben's not the only one who finds her convincing. Still, her only true ally's lack of faith in her stings. “What do you think I'm doing?” she hisses.

 _“Ah.”_ Fergus's eyes widen, and he lets out a low whistle. “'Tis a dangerous game you're playing, lass. You want my advice, the best thing you can do for Johnny is let soldier boy and his men finish their business here and be gone quick as possible.”

Maggie folds her arms, resisting a childish urge to stamp. “I'm not asking your advice, Fergus. I'm asking if you can get my letter where it needs to go.”

He mulls the demand over, then nods. “Aye, I'll find a way. But take care, Maggie.”

“As long as they're around, it's Peggy,” she cautions, gathering up the glasses. Time to get back to work.

-

Flirtatious glances and friendly greetings in public are one matter. Inviting a Redcoat into her parlor is another step altogether.

Her mother, naturally, displays no such qualms. But then, Mother has never approved of Johnny. Even before he ran off to join the Continentals or began voicing “seditious” opinions, Maggie has endured lecture after lecture on not wasting her “prospects” with a farmer's son whose high-flying talk exceeds his ability to follow through or achieve anything of note. If she knew anything of their understanding, she would send Maggie packing to her spinster aunt in Maryland.

By all rights, Maggie should be furious that her visitor should be so readily welcomed, settled into their sofa and laughing at the neighborhood gossip as though he is as much a household fixture as the furniture. Instead, there is something almost comforting in the domesticity of the scene. It does not help that every now and then, in the middle of one of Mother's particularly petty complaints about some perceived slight, he will shoot her a glance of conspiratorial amusement that would look equally at home on Johnny's face.

As she returns from the kitchen with more tea, she can hear Mother asking, “The Andersons? How did they manage to find space for you?” 

Ben chuckles and accepts a refilled cup from Maggie. “It hasn't been easy. Eight little ones, and another on the way. I feel dreadful imposing upon them.”

“We have a spare room,” her mother points out. “I volunteered it when your company arrived.”

“That's right. As I recall, we felt it would not seem...proper to take quarters with a widow and her unmarried daughter. We have no tolerance for miscreants and rakes, but...”

Mother nods, with an expression Maggie knows better than to argue with. She gathers Ben has decided similarly. “Then it's settled. From now on, you'll be staying with us. Everyone in town knows the Malone family honor speaks for itself.” She turns to her daughter. “Don't you agree, Margaret?”

“Of course, Mother,” says Maggie.

-

True to his word, Ben is a model gentleman, despite her mother's increasingly transparent attempts to grant them privacy. Not that Maggie minds. It allows her to gently press him for more information on the company or general dispatches from the war, before turning to more amiable subjects. More and more, she even finds herself enjoying these conversations for their own sake. She can even accept the occasional compliment, knowing it will not be followed by any untoward advances.

Which is why she is startled one evening to hear a knock on her bedroom door, and to find an anxious-looking Ben on the other side of it. “May I come in for a moment?” he asks.

She has not yet begun her nightly preparations, but feels strangely exposed. Still, there is an urgency in his voice that makes her reluctant to turn him away. “Of course.”

He steps inside and closes the door behind him. “I've received word from Colonel Fitzwalter. We depart on Friday.”

“Oh!” Just two days hence, then. As little as two weeks ago, the news would have sent her heart soaring. Instead, she feels an odd pang. “Where will you be going?”

“Not for me to say, I fear.” Without seeming to realize it, he touches a hand to his rucksack. “Besides, I would rather speak of my plans after.”

“After?” she echoes, uncertain.

“I was born in New York, you know,” he says, which does nothing to clarify her confusion. “My family has an estate there. How I wish I could show you. Apple trees as far as the eye can see...”

Maggie listens, spellbound even as she grasps for the thread of the story, as he goes on to spin her a portrait of a blissful childhood, and the loving parents and siblings awaiting his return. Then the vision grows grander still. As much as he misses home, it seems Ben has not yet made up his mind yet whether to remain with the army after the war. He muses on the far-off postings and adventures that might await him. Or perhaps his travels will take him to London, after he has won enough wealth and renown for a fine home and carriage there. “And how much finer would it be, to ride through those streets with the fairest girl in all creation?”

He looks at her, more open and vulnerable than she has ever seen him, trembling but unable to control a beaming smile. Too late, she understands where this is leading. It is all she can do to remain standing as he stammers out, “Margaret Malone. Peggy. It would be my honor—no, my pleasure—that is, will you...?”

Somehow, she is not prepared. She is not surprised: now that it has happened, she can see it as the inevitable result of every interaction they have shared, every signal she has given, every response she has cultivated. But until this moment, she has managed to separate her commitment to the mission from her growing difficulty in remembering Ben is supposed to be the enemy. For the first time, she is forced to admit the truth of Fergus's statement: she has been playing games with a good man's life, and the guilt of it nearly overwhelms her.

She considers fleeing from the room, or breaking down and telling him her real name. She thinks about saying whatever he wants if it will keep him talking about the regiment's plans, so that at least something will be salvaged from this. Briefly, she imagines what it might be like to marry a man who loves her more than liberty, who sees a future beyond this place she has come to loathe.

“I'm sorry,” she says at last, and means it with every fiber of her being. Placing a finger to his lips before he can voice the question she already sees forming, she weighs her next words carefully. “If you never return—no, no promises you may not be able to keep,” she warns, pressing harder as she can feel him start to object. “Bad enough to lose someone I have come to value more than I ever thought possible. To lose my betrothed...” A tear slides down her cheek, as she envisions Johnny fallen in some mud-sodden field hundreds of miles from home. At least, she thinks it is Johnny; the coat of his uniform is unaccountably red, and not with blood. “I don't know what I'd do.”

“I understand.” Ben's blue eyes are too earnest to bear. “No promises, then. Only—one kiss before I go? To hold on to when the fighting is hardest?”

She cannot think of a reason to refuse him. Nor does she have any real desire to try. “That much, I can grant.”

As Ben's lips meet hers, she resolves to leave him with a sweet but chaste – and final – memory. It is a resolution that breaks the instant they make contact. After their first meeting, she has done her best to avoid even accidental touches, fearing the awkwardness would give her away. Now, she realizes the heat he leaves on her skin is something else entirely.

He pulls back to catch his breath (she would not even know where to begin searching for hers), and studies her face a moment. The next kiss is even deeper, with no indication that he intends to stop this time. Any lingering urge she might feel to protest floats away, even as his fingers travel down her laces and begin loosening them.

This is not at all like her goodbye to Johnny, which began with shy fumbling as though they had not known each other all their lives, and was over in a frantic rush of pain followed by the briefest stirrings of pleasure. Everywhere Ben's caresses land, her body responds eagerly. She tells herself it is because he has done this before – a dozen Peggys, scores of promises – but soon enough, the only thought she is capable of holding on to is that she musn't wake Mother with her cries.

“Ben,” she gasps as he finds his release, recalling only moments later that there was ever any risk of her uttering a different name. She feels a stab of guilt at this as well, though directed at whom, she cannot say.

“Are you sure you won't reconsider?” he murmurs, eyes shut and voice slurred as though already half-dreaming.

“Return first,” she hears herself saying. “Then...we'll see.”

Peggy lies in Ben's arms until he drifts off to sleep, smiling fondly when he does not stir as she kisses his cheek. But Maggie still rises and throws on her shift. Silently, she slides Ben's papers from his rucksack, and goes to brew herself a pot of tea while she settles in to trace the notes and maps she finds there.

-

Maggie opens her eyes with a start as a beam of sunlight crosses the kitchen. Morning already, she thinks: still groggy at first, then with alarm. Fortunately, her sleeping form appears to have kept the papers concealed, but can she return them to Ben without waking him?

The question will have to go unanswered: her bed is empty, and Ben's clothes have been gathered up from the floor. In fact, she discovers when she checks his room, all of his belongings appear to have vanished. So has his horse, when she goes outside to investigate after finding no sign of him elsewhere in the house.

A terrible suspicion strikes her. Dressing as quickly as she can and transferring the papers to her pocket in case she finds Fergus before Ben, she saddles her own filly and takes off at full gallop for the inn.

She ties Dolly to a tree a short distance away and approaches the inn on foot, coming to an abrupt stop as she takes in the scene outside. Ben's roan is tied to one of the hitching posts, as is a fine white charger that can only belong to a high-ranking officer. At the other end of the property, she can see soldiers, their movements a shade too purposeful to be described as “milling about.”

It occurs to her that this is the last place she should have come. She should be home, working on a way to explain to Ben why she did not spend the night beside him, provided she cannot distract him either by demanding to know where he has been, or through other enticements. Given enough time, perhaps she can also work on reminding herself the latter is only to be used as a last resort.

Unfortunately, before she can retreat, Ben and one of his superiors emerge from the entrance nearest her.

“Good morning, Miss Malone,” the officer – Colonel Fitzwalter, she assumes – calls out, in what she suspects he considers a congenial tone. Until this moment, she would have sworn he did not know her name. But it is Ben who gazes past her as though she is a stranger, even as they draw closer. “Bit early for you to paying a visit, isn't it?”

“My mother asked me to check and see if Fergus might be able to spare a few eggs,” she lies, too busy trying to keep her voice from shaking to care whether the excuse makes sense. “Is he inside?”

Fitzwalter sneers, all traces of affability instantly erased. “Fergus will be coming with us, at least as far as the prison ships.” He holds out a hand. “Unless you wish to join him, I suggest you leave your true business in our custody as well.”

A thousand possible responses race through Maggie's head, from bewildered denial to checking whether they have found the shotgun Fergus keeps hidden in the cellar. None of them seem likely to end well, least of all for her. Without a word, she reaches into her pocket and obeys the order.

Ben's face betrays no outward change, yet Maggie feels certain he would shatter at her touch if she were to reach out. Not that she dares try. It is all she can do to not look away like the coward she now knows herself to be, and even this final reserve of courage is rapidly failing her.

Instead, she focuses on the colonel. Something about the care with which he tucks away her missive frightens her even more than its confiscation. “What are you going to do with it?” she asks, all pretense of calm vanished.

At this, Fitzwalter does smile. His sharp, wolflike grin sends Maggie's stomach plummeting toward the ice that has crystallized at the base of her spine. “Why, exactly what Fergus would have done.” He doffs his hat and sweeps her a bow. “Our thanks, by the by. We could find other ways to pass along the information, but it will be ever so much more convincing rendered in your fair penmanship.” 

Unperturbed by her stricken silence, he straightens, darting a glance at Ben. “I'll leave you a moment to say your goodbyes to Captain Sampson,” he offers without compassion, from which Maggie infers she is not the only one being taught a lesson. With one last self-satisfied nod, he strides off in the direction of the horses.

Maggie stares at Ben as though across a chasm. He, too, stands frozen, his face still unreadable. Just as she resolves to break the standoff – how, she has not yet determined, except that it cannot be worse than this agony – he stirs. “Was any of it real?” he asks, in a hoarse croak that is equal parts rage and sorrow.

“I don't know,” she confesses, not attempting to hold back her own distress.

Somehow, this appears to pain him more than she would have expected from a flat “no.” With visible effort, he pulls himself together enough to execute a stiff bow. “Please convey my gratitude to your mother for her hospitality. Alas, I fear the next regiment may not be so kindly disposed toward this town, or the Malone household.” His voice turns hard, but she can still hear a slight tremor beneath the words. “Nor will I, should I pass this way again.”

She forces herself to keep watching as he walks away and takes his place beside Fitzwalter, galloping off without a backward look. 

Only once the two red specks disappear over the horizon does she wipe her eyes and turn her attention inward. A new plan is forming out of the wreckage of the old: every bit as ill-conceived and ten times as desperate, perhaps, but infinitely preferable to sitting and waiting for her doom to fall upon her. She has a new letter to pen to her mother, and another message to compose for Johnny. 

Perhaps by the time she reaches him to deliver it, she will know what to say.


End file.
